Classical World

After the triumphal posthumous publication of Don Fowler's commentary on Lucretius' DRN 2.1–332, writing a commentary on another part of the poem could easily appear as an endeavor almost doomed to fare badly by comparison. In spite of this apprehension, Gordon Campbell's stylish commentary on DRN 5.772–1104 proves a success.

In this part of the poem Lucretius provides us with a rationalistic explanation of the creation and evolution of species. He accounts for the spontaneous generation of plants and animals from the earth, the first stages of human prehistory and the formation of first societies, and the origins of language and justice and of fire and cooking. Lucretius' ultimate goal is to prove that there is no divine providence or design. Moreover, Lucretius' view of cultural history is a gradualist one; all things are [End Page 205] learned in stages "as an interaction of experience and necessity over time." Given the perplexity of the issues dealt with, Campbell prefaces each section with useful categorization of opposite scholarly views and makes clear his own approach, this often standing in between the two poles.

After an inclusive introduction, Campbell presents us with his version of the Latin text and its translation. The main commentary is divided into eight unequal sections, the introductions of which could each be read as a comprehensive treatise. Two handy appendixes are placed at the end, one on the themes in accounts of creation, zoogony, and anthropogony, and another on themes in prehistories and accounts of the Golden Age.

In a truly Lucretian manner, Campbell avoids comparison with his master by way of utter differentiation. Whereas his work is not a line-by-line commentary, it is not addressed to the uninitiated reader. One can glean diverse information about the reception of this Lucretian account in literature and art (e.g., Piero di Cosimo's paintings), wide-ranging intercultural material (Icelandic cosmogonies or those of Columbian Amazonia), and appealing electronic links (sounds of the world's animals). Strictly philological issues, although not absent, certainly are not Campbell's priority. In fact, one could complain that Campbell redefines the genre of commentary, but this is in fact the charm of this work. He breathes new life into Lucretian scholarship and makes the poem a contemporary reading. Owing to the limited space of this review, I will touch upon only two themes of his multifaceted commentary.

Regarding the issue of whether Lucretius is an Evolutionist or an anti-Evolutionist, Campbell maintains that none of these labels is in fact correct. In order to trace the causes of this misinterpretation, he brings in the discussion of Darwinian theory. By spelling out the similarities and differences between Lucretius' and Darwin's schemes of adaptations, Campbell shows that Lucretius is not a direct forerunner of Darwin's anti-teleological and mechanistic views of the origins of species; hence, he classifies him among the anti-Evolutionists. Yet, from another point of view Lucretius could still be considered an Evolutionist, since the human race clearly differs from animals by an evolutionary process.

One of the main contributions of this commentary is Campbell's discussion of Lucretius' intertextual relationship with Empedocles. It has long been recognized that in this part of the poem the dialogue with the Presocratic is particularly intensive, since in these two authors we find the only two detailed mechanistic accounts of random creation and adaptation extant from the ancient world. Not every parallel with Empedocles' poem that Campbell points out is equally convincing (e.g., 5.824). Still, Campbell crucially deepens our knowledge of Empedocles' and Lucretius' interrelation, especially at this turning point of Empedoclean scholarship, after the publication of the Strasbourg papyrus. Campbell rightly prioritizes the presence of Empedocles in a context in which the Heraclitean doctrine is usually considered the main intertext (5.826–836, about the constant universal fluidity, in spite...